Most vehicle door latches currently in production share certain basic operational principals. The operating mechanism is generally mounted to a housing, which in turn is arranged for mounting in the vehicle door. The housing includes a slot for registering with and receiving a wire or rod keeper of a striker mounted to the vehicle adjacent the perimeter of the door. A ratchet is provided to engage and release the striker in respective rest and release positions. The ratchet is held in the rest position by a pawl. The pawl is moveable out of engagement with the ratchet to release the ratchet and in turn allow the striker to be withdrawn from the slot. Movement of the pawl is generally effected by at least one release lever. Often there are separate release levers associated with an inside door handle of the vehicle and an outside door handle of the vehicle.
At least the outside release lever may be connected to the pawl by a locking mechanism which in turn is actuated by a locking mechanism. In such arrangements, the vehicle door lock will engage or disengage the locking mechanism whereby movement of the release lever will not be translated into movement of the pawl.
In current latch arrangements, the ratchet, pawl, locking mechanism and lock actuator lie in parallel planes or orthogonal planes and movement is about generally parallel pivoting axi. The prior art arrangement as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,102,453, presents some challenges where power operated locking mechanisms are utilized because it may leave little room for placement of the power actuator.
Additionally, the design of the prior art latches prevent the latches from being easily modified to accommodate different applications. Each latch application requires a complete set of tools to manufacture the different latches for each application.